Slippy
by bootstring
Summary: Slippy the snake is bored, until Dudley brings him home as a pet. Takes place before the zoo incident. One-shot, slightly AU.


Slippy wanted someone to talk to.

It had been a long time since he'd had that. So long ago, in fact, that he scarcely remembered it. He'd just pushed his way out of the egg and all about him were brothers and sisters, slithering left and right and all over each other in frantic free-for-all to get out and see the world. But for some reason he decided to pause a few moments before bolting off, and in that time he managed a short but fascinating conversation with a sister. It had gone like this:

Slippy: Hi.

Sister: You look funny.

Slippy: So do you.

Sister: Oooh, look! A nice sunny rock! 'Bye!

Slippy: Bye!

Snakes are not, on the whole, family-oriented. Nor are they known for their conversational abilities. But hatchling moments are said to be the most formative of all (although not by snakes who, as has been explained, do not say much), and those early moments of communication had left Slippy with a hunger for more.

This was not the only thing for which he hungered. He was a snake, after all. But ever since he had woken up one day in a glass cage, he had forced himself to quell this other hunger as he attempted to converse with the strange new companions who kept ending up in his cage.

The conversation would usually go something like this:

Slippy: Hello there! What brings you here?

Mouse: Eeep!

Slippy: Alright, you don't need to share if it's personal. I'm Slippy, what's your name?

Mouse: _Eeep!_

Slippy: Is that a family name? If it is, I believe I met your brother yesterday.

Mouse: Eeepeepeep.

Slippy: Ah... perhaps it wasn't polite to mention that. Well, while we're here we might as well get cozy. Read any good books lately?

Mouse: Eeep!

It was at this point that Slippy usually ate the stupid fellow. It was a mercy, really. Imagine not having read any good books.

Oh, how he longed for the day when he could really talk to someone. He'd long since given up on trying to talk to the stupid bipedal creatures with white hands. They delievered him mice and water once a day and then went away. This was obviously their whole purpose in life, as he never saw them doing anything else. It was comforting, in a way, because at least it proved that all creatures, no matter how dumb, had a vital role to play in the continued functioning of the ecosystem.

Then, one day, they took him out of his cage.

They put him in a new one and gave him to some other bipedal creatures who did not have white hands. He wondered if that made them a whole new species or just a different breed. There was a tall fat bipedal creature, a short fat bipedal creature, and a tall skinny bipedal creature.

The short fat bipedal creature was quite annoying and kept banging on his cage. Slippy politely requested him to stop it, but this only seemed to rouse him to new efforts. Slippy decided to ignore him and see if that would make him go away.

It didn't.

Instead, he was placed in the creature's bedroom, where he was periodically stared at until the creature got bored and wandered off. Sometimes the creature brought in fellow creatures, and then they would all bang on his cage and make loud noises at him.

He just looked at them sleepily. He'd tried talking to them, but it hadn't worked, and so he had retreated into a sullen silence.

This lasted until one day when he was jostled rudely awake in the middle of a rather pleasant sleep. He was being lifted up and placed somewhere else—another cage, and a smaller one too!

"Really?" he asked, turning around as much as he was able when being held by the throat. "What have I ever done to you?"

The creature dropped him, and he landed with _thunk_ in his new cage.

"Watch it!" he snapped.

"I-I'm sorry!" the bipedal creature said. "I didn't realize you could... I'm only here to clean your cage!"

If Slippy could have blinked, he would have. The creature could _talk_? This changed things!

"That's quite alright," he said, stretching himself out. This was not easy. His tail kept hitting glass. "I do hope you won't keep me in this thing, though."

"I won't... it's just until I finish cleaning everything out. Er, I'm sorry you have to be in a cage at all. Sometimes I'm kept in one too, so I know what it's like. Well, it's a cupboard really, but you can't always tell the difference."

Slippy looked at him thoughtfully. "You aren't like the others, are you?"

The creature shook its head vigorously in a gesture that plainly meant _no._

"So what sort of species are you, then?"

"I'm a human."

"Human?" The word triggered a flood of memories for Slippy. They were not his memories, not specifically; they were important snake memories that got passed on and out so that all snakes had them. _Egg knowledge_, it was called. And right now, that egg knowledge was rattling a warning in his head.

"Oh, no," he groaned.

"What is it?"

"I'm a _homentongue_!"

"A what?"

"I never asked for this! It's not my fault!"

"But what are you talking about?"

"I can speak to humans! I'm not evil though, I swear!"

"I never thought you were."

"Please, _please _don't tell any other snakes about this. But wait!" A new thought occurred to him and he brightened. "If any other snakes were to talk to you then they'd be homentongues too, so they couldn't say anything bad about me!"

"What's so bad about being able to talk to humans?" the human asked, and Slippy perceived that it felt hurt.

"Oh, sorry... It's just that homentongues don't have a great reputation. A lot of the very worst snakes in history were able to talk to humans, you see."

The human appeared to think about it, then nodded. "That makes sense. There's a lot of humans who are pretty mean. It's probably best to avoid us, on the whole."

"Exactly. You don't seem so bad, though. What's your name?"

The human said something, but it made no sense, and was unpronouncable in any case. So Slippy rechristened him as Two-Foot, and Two-Foot finished cleaning out his cage, and promised to come back later whenever he wouldn't get in trouble for doing so.

Thus began a friendship that lasted for most of the summer. Slippy promised not to go far whenever Two-Foot cleaned out his cage, and in return he got to roam around the room. Whenever he could Two-Foot even brought him outside, and let him slither around the gardens as it was weeding them. Slippy never went far, no matter how tempted he was: he didn't want to get his friend into trouble. For his part, Slippy shared with him all the egg knowledge he could. He wouldn't give away any snake secrets, but he felt safe simply sharing stories about jungles and forests and gardens, and which creatures you needed to avoid, and which were yummy. He felt this was knowledge the young human should have, as undernourished as it was.

One day, as a special treat, he told Two-Foot about a young and foolish snake. This snake was a homentongue, and had allowed curiosity to overcome her, so that she came when a strange and powerful human spotted her in the forest and called out to her. It invited her into its dwelling, which was a very large stone house, and beautiful in the way that humans think of things. She refused, but it kept asking, until one day she agreed and went inside.

"And?" Two-Foot asked.

"And what?"

"What's the end of the story?"

"I just told it to you, weren't you listening?"

"But what happens to her after she goes inside?"

Slippy swished his tail irritably. "How am I supposed to know? That's not a part of the story."

"Does she ever get out?"

"I already said that I don't know!" He was annoyed. He'd thought that Two-Foot would be pleased to hear a story with a human in it.

Instead, it was looking down and biting its lip. "I'm sorry."

Now Slippy was surprised. "For what?"

"Keeping you in a cage. That's like what that other human in the story did, isn't it."

Slippy didn't answer. He didn't want to say _yes._

"Slippy?"

"What?"

"If you could go anywhere, where would it be?"

He didn't even have to think about it. "The jungle. I'm sure that's where I come from."

"Alright. Maybe I can do something."

"No! I don't want you to get into trouble!"

"But—"

A shadow fell over them—

8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_

—A shadow fell over them, and Harry was grabbed by the back of the collar and dragged up. He was turned around and when he looked up he saw the angry, red face of Aunt Marge.

"So it's the boy, eh? And what are you doing goofing off instead of working like you're supposed to, eh?"

"I'm just... gardening," he managed to gasp out, and then he wrenched himself free.

"A likely story," she barked. "I heard you talking! Who were you talking to then, hm? Yourself? You think they should have to put up with an ungrateful derelict _and_ a mental case?"

"I'm not a—what you said, and I'm not mad!" She opened her mouth like she was about to shout back, but her eyes fell on Slippy and she began to scream.

Ripper, alerted by his mistress's cries, came bounding over, and Slippy was getting ready to strike and Harry thought to himself _No, no, don't let anything happen to him—_and then there was a loud _bang_ and when he looked over again Slippy wasn't there.

By this time Vernon and Petunia and Dudley had raced out to the yard, and they tried to calm Aunt Marge down as she told her side of the story in almost incoherent bursts between sobs. They brought her in for tea while Harry finished weeding. By the time he was done Dudley had noticed his pet snake was missing (well, which snake did they think it was, that Aunt Marge had seen?), and Harry was shoved into his cupboard, "to be dealt with later."

He leaned against the wall. It sure had been nice, having a friend, but Slippy was probably happier now. He wondered where he had gone. Wherever it was, it had to be better than Number Four, Privet Drive.

He shook his head. Whoever would have thought it, a snake that could talk to humans!

8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_8_

—A shadow fell over them, and Two-Foot was grabbed from behind and raised onto his feet. There were a lot of loud noises, some of them coming from Two-Foot. A very large bipedal creature who he'd never seen before looked at him and let out a high-pitched noise and he raised himself up in warning and then there was a quadpedal creature and—

—suddenly he was in the jungle. It looked vaguely familiar. He began slithering in circles, trying to make sense of it all. This certainly looked similar to the place he'd been picturing when he told Two-Foot where it was he wanted to go, but how had he gotten here? Was he a magic snake?

He felt a stab of guilt, and of shame at his own foolishness. Who would he talk to, now that he no longer had his friend?

"Hello. You look new."

He looked over. It was a girl-snake, and she was sunning herself on a rock.

"I am. Would you like some company?" he asked politely. In answer, she moved herself over and made room for him on the rock.

So he went over, and they talked. It wasn't as good as talking to Two-Foot, but then, it wasn't bad.


End file.
